The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1887-08-13
The Most Disastrous Event tho City Has
Known Since the Riots OF 1877.
Hours with Destructive Conflagration
in the Heart of the Business Center.
Masonic Hall and Several Magnificent
Business Buildings Destroyed.
Issue of the Paper Prevented-Loss Not
Known, but Estimated at ST. 600, 900.

PITrsBURG, Pa. Aug LIT little after
9 o'clock to- night when the big bell in the City
Hall tower doomed out the number of Box "a, in
dicating fire in the business center Of the city
Four hours later the center of the square bound
ed by Fifth, Wood. Smithfeld streets and Virgin
alley a smoldering ruin and million
dollars worth of property had been consumed.
It the most disastrous fire since the great
Pittsburg riots of decade ago. The flames start
in the rear of the Masonic building, presumably
in the basement of Campbell & Dicks carpet
store On three sides were solid brick buildings
forming a quadrangle encompassinR quarter of
an acre of finder Uoxes. Alarm after alarm
followed each other, and within forty-ive min
utes the fire machinery of five districts was on
the ground. But hose. and engines. and trucks,
and axes, were poweress to deal with the blaz-
ing furnace that alowed in seething defiance
at two score nozzles, in the hands OF a hundred
firemen. On the east side was tho Hottest
building in the city, the Hamilton, which tow
cred nine stories above the flames that
licked its base. Seven stories from
the ground it presented q solid wall
of brick. which offered no opening
for the fremen to work upon that
side. The front. on Fifth avenue, also pre-
vented an advantageous placing of the firemen,
and with the roaring fire increasing in volume
and extent at every second, there were but two
sides at which the fremen could work. The
rear was a narrow alley and with all the odds
against them the fremen seemed to have been
called to hopeless contest with the flames. But
they rallied the second-story roofs at the
west side. while half dozen
streams guarded the front on Fifth avenue.
The pipemen could not get within one hundred
feet of the fiery crater. Though at work
at a safe elevation from the hottest Of the
fire. it singed their hair and scorohed their eye
balls; but the laundering engines seemed to be
but idle play for all the Roadway made against
the fire. There was not much wind. and the
sparks and burning fire brands shot out from the
pit of flame and scared lazIly over the roofs of
the business blocks on both sides of Fifth ave-
nue.. On every roof for two squares were men
with buckets and extinguishers, putting out the
sparks and brands that dropped in a
heavy shower over the buildings for a
solid square. The lurid tongues of
flame seemed to attract half tho city.
Fifth avenue, a thoroughfare, was
one solid. impossible jam. Through this crowd
the fremen had to lay their lines with the aid of
squads of policemen. who alone could force re-
spect by the free use of maces. Section after
section of hose was burst by the high pressure
under which the engines were working. diff
Guilty that was increased by the tramping of
thousands of feet upon the lines.
At IL P. M. the surging flames rolled in as
cending pillows to the hight of the roofs upon
which the pipemen were stationed. and it then
seemed that the destruction of the entire block
It was at this hour that the Hamilton building.
i've stories higher than the structures which
banked il. caught from the cracking area Of
xhite-hot Goals that glowed alongside. The
elevation at which the second stage of the con-
iagration began. The Hamilton structure OK
ends entirely through the block to Virgin alley.
long ladder was up the rear and detail of |
iremen slowly dragged and toed upward with
inc Of hose When the fifth-story windows had
,een almost reached, the water was |
urned at a frghtful pressure. The |
hook almost hurled the men at the nozzle from |
he ladder. The wrigeng tortuous hose |
vrithed in their grasp. To release it would |
rave been to have stripped those lower down |
rom the lofty ladder With cool resolution how |
yer, the men pointed the stream directly |
loft. and chung to the swaying elastic |
adder that at every moment threatened to |
areen to the pavement below In this perilous, |
gonizing position they chung for fully four |
minutes before the eyes of the horror-strcken |
rowd. The word reached the end of the line, |
nd the wicked stream was cut off.
By this time the seventh, eighth, and ninth |
oors of the Hamilton building were ablaze, and |
10 stream of water could more than touch the |
ringe of the flame along the lower
ide. The Dispatch building was then
My separated from the fire by /
n intervening structure, the Schmidt
Friday building. The printers in the fifth
tory. almost suffocated by the roasting sirocco
hat drove through the windows. abandoned
heir 'cases" and stampeded down the stairways
.cross the street was the headquarters of the
associated Press. The roof had caught several
ines from flying sparks, but was extngushed
y the sentinels stationed aloft. Finally, with
he heat too intense to be longer endurabe, and
nth the telegraph wires cut and useless the
orce of operators were sent to the Western
Tnion main office, which temporarily became
ne headquarters of the Associated Press.
At this hour $3.50 A. NJ. the flames are under
ontrol, but the fire is not extinguished. The
hamilton building. Masonic Hall, and number
tenement-houses Virgin alley totally
estroyed.
The three upper stories of Schmidt g. Fridays
building now in flames. The
,wer stories are so damaged with water that
ne loss could not be much greater il they had